The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics

Abstract

THE discovery, about 1945, at Nag Hamadi in Egypt (the ancient Chenoboskion), of what was probably the complete sacred library of a Gnostic sect is one of those sensational events in the history of religious-historical scholarship that archeology and accident have so lavishly provided since the beginning of this century. It was preceded (speaking of written relics only) by the enormous find, early in the century, of Mianichaean writings at Turfan in Chinese Turkistan and by the further unearthing, about 1930 in the Egyptian Fayum, of parts of a Manichaean library in Coptic. It was closely followed by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Palestine. If we add to these new sources the Mandaean